London Fire Brigade’s Assistant Commissioner for Fire Safety, Dan Daly, has appealed to households in the capital to skip the cooking if they become too drunk: “I hate to be the Christmas Grinch but please avoid getting too tipsy while preparing the turkey and all the trimmings this Christmas. Alcohol and cooking are a dangerous recipe. “The most common Christmas cooking catastrophe is people coming home after they’ve been overdoing the celebrations on a night out and deciding to rustle up a quick snack. I’ve lost count of how many house fires I’ve attended where grills and pans have been left on while people fall asleep on the sofa, it’s much safer to pick up a take-away meal instead.” London drinking statistics at a glance: Last year there were 165 alcohol-related accidental cooking fires The second highest number of alcohol-related cooking fires have been recorded in December (August is the highest) Firefighters have dealt with 994 alcohol-related accidental cooking fires over the past 5 years – that’s an average of 4 fires a week TOP TIPS …

Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan is continuing to make cleaning London’s foul air his signature policy. He is calling on vehicle manufacturers to contribute to his Air Quality Fund over the negative effects their diesel vehicles have on air quality and public health in the capital. Khan has written to UK chiefs at BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen urging them to take serious action on diesel emissions. The manufacturers have already contributed up to £223m to the German government’s ‘Sustainable Mobility Fund for Cities’ and the mayor is now urging them to take action in London and the UK. He has also written to the Secretary of State for Transport, Chris Grayling, as part of his continued lobbying of central government to do more to tackle what he describes as the “biggest environmental public health crisis of a generation”. He is calling on the authorities to secure contributions from vehicle manufacturers on the same scale as the £24bn received from Volkswagen (including fines, compensation and other settlements) in the US and £223m from German car manufacturers …